Making money on eBay is the same as making money in any other online or retail market. It's tough, because you have to be at least as good as everyone else, or you fail.

If you set off with the intention of making money, you are by IRS definition, a business. You must pay taxes on what you make.

As a business in the USA, you're involved in a great deal of competition. If you don't win, you lose.

eBay is the easy part. The hard part is figuring out how to run a business, insure your business, get all the right permits and registrations, and then figure out how to get people to want to buy from you instead of the other 38,597,562 sellers on eBay, or anywhere else on Earth, like the corner store.

Before setting off with a genius plan to make a million dollars on eBay, contact SCORE and ask them for business advice. SCORE is a fantastic organization, and they'll get you all the help you need.

If you can make money selling items at the local flea market or swap meet, if you can make money running a retail or online store, if you can make money doing sales at any level, you have what it takes to succeed on eBay.

Women Men Shoes Red Sneakers Rose On Slip Mesh Breathable Water Walking ODEMA If you lack these critical business and people skills, eBay isn't going to make it any easier. eBay is just another market. If you aren't able to bring products to market elsewhere, you probably won't do well on eBay.

If you have the business skill, go right ahead! Be sure to work with your local chapter of SCORE to sort out the business aspects and get some great advice on how to be successful.

That's the important part. Once you've got that down, here are my tips on some of the details related only to the eBay aspects.

Men Red Rose Water Walking Mesh Shoes Women Breathable On ODEMA Sneakers Slip Forget trying to buy items on eBay to resell on eBay. Even if you manage a scheme to have the original seller reship to your buyer instead of you having to pay for shipping twice, PayPal will choke.

The people who make money on eBay are people who know where to buy items cheaply elsewhere, and only then sell them on eBay.

eBay usually gets the highest prices for anything, so you're not likely to make a killing thinking you're any smarter than anyone else at finding bargains on eBay.

Men ODEMA Women Walking Mesh Water Red Slip Sneakers Breathable Rose Shoes On So where do pro sellers find bargains? Here are some:

Garage Sales in Rich Old Peoples Neighborhoods

Slip Walking On Sneakers Men ODEMA Shoes Rose Water Women Red Mesh Breathable Have a lot of rich old people dying around you? You're in luck!

When their kids run the garage sale, they don't want any of this stuff.

Show up Saturday morning, and I know guys who pick up Nikon F100's for $100 and D1X' for $75 a piece. Rich people don't care; they just want this crap out of grandma's house. They'll probably pay you to haul away the Leica film gear.

Estates

This is the biggest one: there are people who make it their livings liquidating the life-long possessions of dead people.

An estate liquidator goes in and buys everything, trash and treasures, all at once. They cart away the rubbish, and the juiciest items go up on eBay.

They make their money by offering the service of being a one-stop, one check solution to get rid of everything. By offering the service of taking it all, they hope that the good stuff makes more money than what it costs them to haul away the junk.

Red Breathable Water Men Shoes Rose Women Slip Sneakers Mesh Walking On ODEMA If you think you can show up and just cherry-pick the good stuff, guess again.

This is a living unto itself. It's not the eBay part that makes them rich, it's their abilities to research the obituaries, grease the coroner's office and the guy who runs the incinerator at the local hospital, and most importantly, deal cordially and professionally with grieving relatives.

Governments have no idea how to promote themselves. When a government runs an auction, it's usually in the most remote location, at the most ridiculous time, with the weirdest requirements. This isn't on purpose, it's simply because governments tend to operate to make things easy for themselves, not run to get the most money for their items to help us, the taxpayers.

Because they have no idea how to run an auction or promote it, if you're one of the few people who can figure when and where they happen, bring a truck and a lot of cash, and you're in.

I'd love to go to these auctions (you know what a cheapskate I am), but since governments are governments, and not businesses, they have no idea how to promote these things. Since they don't mail out postcards every six months to everyone in town (as they'll do to promote every other waste-of-time city project), no one knows when or where they are.

I think the best way to find them is to contact your local police or sheriffs' department and find out when they auction off the recovered stolen property. Try to contact your city and county governments to learn where they auction off the crashed cop cars and old typewriters. I have no idea when you find the federal auctions for expired munitions and presidential limousines. (No kidding: Camp Pendleton here in San Diego has had a heck of a time trying to get rid of a huge stockpile of expired napalm.)

Beware of well promoted auctions for idiots. The auctions you see promoted as ART LIQUIDATION or ESTATE SALE are run by pros, and therefore well promoted. These guys usually rent a vacant luxury home for a weekend just to run an "Estate Art Sale." Sometimes you can get a deal, but probably not enough of a deal to make it worth your while to resell. The good stuff that will fetch a better price on eBay is usually held back by the auction company, and sold themselves over eBay!

The biggest help is when you use any of these links when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. It costs you nothing, and is this site's, and thus my family's, biggest source of support. These places have the best prices and service, which is why I've used them since before this website existed. I recommend them all personally.

If you find this page as helpful as a book you might have had to buy or a workshop you may have had to take, feel free to help me continue helping everyone.

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